


Elemental

by roseveare



Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-13
Updated: 2016-08-13
Packaged: 2018-07-27 09:15:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,878
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7612399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roseveare/pseuds/roseveare
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Amenadiel reasserts his presence in Lucifer's life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Elemental

**Author's Note:**

  * For [GreenPhoenix](https://archiveofourown.org/users/GreenPhoenix/gifts).



**1 THE FLOOD**

They're still picketing the night club even though the weather is casting a rare rain upon LA. With the sunset starting now to streak the back of the cloud-wisped sky, the raindrops lay down contrary gray angles to the orange bands. The picket was amusing at first, albeit never so amusing as Lucifer pretended, but now it's carving out new definitions of tedium.

As he walks into his own club, the nutjobs wave their signs and yell, "Devil! He's the devil!" " _Demon_!" "Scourge of Hell!" Lucifer rolls his eyes and flings up his hands and yells back, " _Okay_ , already! Enough!" but it gets buried beneath the din.

The din ceases, frozen. Lucifer falters at the door and looks around. The rain is stopped in mid-air. Amenadiel says, "I can probably help you with that."

"Ooh," Lucifer fills in. "Because you're being _helpful_ now, as opposed to doing shady things like trying to kill me."

He wonders why Amenadiel stopped appearing with his wings out all the time and whether he imagines it to be an act of sensitivity. Obviously, Lucifer doesn't care, since big fluffy wings and the freedom of the air are nothing to the freedom of _not being in Hell_.

"Greetings," Amenadiel says, deadpan. More formally, he inclines his head.

"Greetings, brother," Lucifer echoes. He doffs off a finger-salute against his forehead. "You know this chap, right?" He skips back through the statues to the head of the nutters -- doesn't matter if they're _right_ , they're still _nutters_. Nobody sane _actually believes_ the devil is running a night club in Los Angeles, and besides, over-reaction much? He pats the frozen Reverend Jonathan Joseph on the head with his palm. "He's one of yours. Whisper a word in his ear. Get the point across that all this isn't very _charitable_ and _daddy would disapprove_ , alright?"

"You _are_ the devil," Amenadiel points out, unmoved. 

"That's just a job, and it's not even that anymore," Lucifer flails. "This is harassment. What, is he feeling _petty_ up there?!" He shouts the latter over Amenadiel's shoulder at the sky.

Amenadiel rubs his chin between his fingers and frowns at the reverend. "He hopped on the back of the street evangelist's movement and the video footage?"

"Well, I presume so! Once it's on the internet, it's there forever, you know! One day they were all just here, and look at them -- look how they're dressed! They're making my establishment look very uncool." 

Amenadiel laughs at him. Amenadiel is looking quite snappy himself today. Lately, his wings make a showing less _and_ his suits get better. Lucifer ponders if that is his influence or _for_ him, or if his angelic brother is getting more and more attached to living in the world, too. Now wouldn't _that_ be an irony.

"Well," the angel says with undue emphasis. "Wouldn't want your ridiculous bar to suffer. I can whisper some of Father's words in his ear, as you wish."

"As long as they're ones that mean _stop it_. Fantastic, then." Lucifer claps him on the back. "I don't suppose you can just leave them? I swear, my head is pounding." He flaps his hands around his head, which shouldn't and doesn't really ache, but he's pretty sure that whatever he can get of a headache, this is that.

"Luci, no matter how long I stop time, you still have to resume where time left off and live through the scene as it plays out. It's called the mortal condition. I could make a point here about the purpose your sojourn in LA is serving, but--"

"But you did stop trying to score points there, in the light of my demonstrated intentions to remain," Lucifer overrides. "Isn't that right, brother?" Amenadiel is rolling his eyes. "Well, then, fat lot of use you are. You might as well start them up again and we at least get this over with quicker. Eventually I suppose they'll go home. I _assume_ they have homes to go to..."

Amenadiel nods and huffs a laugh. "Maybe the dedicated faithful go from one cause to another, with no place to rest their head in between. You could respect them for daring to raise arms against the devil himself. Brave men and women, standing up for all that's good..."

"Can you make it rain on them more? Petition Upstairs for some Biblical downpours, that'd be the ticket. As for standing up for all that's good-- surely father shouldn't approve of people _hating on me_."

Amenadiel gives him a Look. "Justified wrath has its place..."

"You and I both know I'm not responsible for any of their evils. Just an enforcer, Amenadiel..." A wave of a hand and the chanting resumes as though it never stopped. Lucifer shouts louder. "So if you can make this whispered word _sooner_ rather than _later_? I think I'm showing admirable patience not just ordering Maze to get rid of the lot of them."

"Do _not_ \--" Amenadiel starts sharply, as though he never heard of _joking_.

"Funny how I have the ear of both the angels and Los Angeles police force, yet neither will do anything about this," Lucifer complains bitterly as they head toward the entrance to Lux, the crowds and bouncers parting like water.

"I'll come up with something. Only... somewhere quieter."

"Hah. You just don't want to get your wings wet," Lucifer sneers. On his own skin, the rain feels damp and pleasant, weighing his hair, making his suit glitter in the flickering lights, as they descend and the music rises. Despite his words, the water hasn't accrued on Amenadiel's clothing or skin. Unsettling, these gathering differences between them now... Since he left Hell, since he _chose_. But he destroyed his wings himself. Becoming more mortal is at least _interesting_.

"Dance with me, brother." He pulls at Amenadiel's hands as they enter the melee on the dance floor, pushing one down to his hip, keeping hold of the other, moving his body in time with the music. "It's been a long while, after all."

"This is a _lot_ different from dancing and singing in praise of the Lord," is his stuffy return. "Those songs at least tended not to quite so prominently feature the word 'bitch'."

Lucifer grins. "True, but you can't deny these have a better beat."

Amenadiel moves with him for all of three seconds, removing the hand from his hip and folding Lucifer's firmly in front of his body as if in prayer before he lets them go. "I will talk to the reverend."

Then he's gone.

"Oh, _poot_ ," states Lucifer delicately, looking around. "Jilted on the dance floor." No Amenadiel, but he picks out three men and two women that seem an enticing prospect for the evening. Sex always clears his head. It's probably another commentary on how he's changing that he decides upon a man who's not actually attached to a dance partner. Then again, his selection is a large African-American man with a shiny head and a penchant for black leather. So maybe there's something else at work there.

***

**2\. INFERNO**

The fire in the church is raging, and of the casualties strewn on the grass outside, if Lucifer stands and focuses for too long, he can see not just who's on their way out, but where they're bound after. The ones who would've gone to him, if he were still there to receive them, pulse the strongest in his perception. He does wonder exactly how they're handling the process at the other end. Not that the demons won't do their jobs -- they're a well trained, loyal bunch, professionals -- but things must be starting to fall down, without some head on the body. He wonders who Father will _really_ put up there in his place, when He finally accepts that Lucifer isn't coming back.

"Hey, _hey_ \-- I've got you." Detective Decker grabs the shoulders of a woman staggering out of the burning chancel, who'd have fallen without her touch.

Or maybe Father really _is_ just waiting for him to come home via the shorter route. Maybe set a whole church on fire just to engineer it. Lucifer hears the _crack_ and sees the support beam in the roof above them start to go, and dives for Chloe. He can't get her out of the way in time, he thinks, too calmly, and as usual the only means he has to protect her is the very body she inconveniently renders vulnerable.

Time stops with the blazing beam hanging overhead, and even the other flames around them are frozen. Though Lucifer's jacket is still on fire.

"Are you here on business?" Lucifer asks, his voice coming out altogether too much in breathy pants to exude the casualness he's aiming for, while he's frantically trying to drag off and beat down his burning jacket. "To collect your own in person?"

"On the contrary." Amenadiel's wings are out this time. He looks grand enough to squeeze a grin from Lucifer even in the present circumstance. "I'm here for you."

"That sounds -- threatening--" Lucifer hurls the jacket away from him. "Should you maybe not be stopping the flaming roof from falling and killing me, if that's your gameplan?" He stamps his foot, trying to put out the lick of flames on his trouser hem, because if he has to drag those off, too, this really _is_ going to look undignified. Pain in his hand blazes, hot, _hot_ , and indignation overcomes him entirely. "Amenadiel! This is -- look at me, I'm _burned_!" He waggles his fingers, incensed, in the angel's face. "If you _must_ cart me off back to Hell, please arrange an exit with a _little_ more dignity!"

"Couldn't have the devil burning to death," Amenadiel agrees humourlessly. "I'm not here to take you back, I'm here to save your life. I think." He casts an uncertain glance at the suspended beam. There's a lot of unknowns in this situation, after all.

The flames which are _not_ attached to Lucifer, frozen as everything else, are not even generating heat anymore. The ambient temperature of the air that was searing his throat is reduced to an acceptable level. Lucifer gathers up frozen Chloe, and she sags in his arms, eyes still open. It's weird. Carrying her hurts as though she intensifies all those annoying human injuries with her proximity. Also, she's -- heavy. He doesn't think he's as strong as usual.

Amenadiel lifts the other woman, effortlessly, and nods.

Lucifer waggles his head -- _tiresome_ \-- and staggers through the frozen blaze of the door into the relative safety beyond, where he has to sag and let Chloe go. He tries to stand her up, supporting her. "You know, you might want to retract those before you unfreeze everyone," he pants at his brother, pointing at Amenadiel's wings. Which _shouldn't_ have fit through the spaces he's been walking in, but reality curves to accommodate his angelic form. Lucifer misses that. There _are_ things he misses. Yet -- trade-off, freedom, no Hell.

Amenadiel's wings zip back into him and he sets the woman next to Chloe. Chloe staggers against Lucifer's side and the sounds of screaming and the hissing of flames return. "What--?"

"That was amazing, Detective Decker. The way you just heroically ran through those flames," Lucifer urges.

"I--" She looks at him suspiciously, and narrows her eyes at Amenadiel. "How did you get--? No. You know what. Don't even bother. Never mind."

She shakes her head and stumbles away, guiding the rescued woman with her.

Lucifer looks at the flames overtaking the rest of the building. "Too much wood in these old churches. Add the penchant for candles and incense, and it's a wonder they don't go up all the time. Still, it's a little _excessive_ , don't you think? All your sort of people inside and He's burned quite a few of them today to get to me."

"That's not -- I'm _sure_ that's not Father's plan here," Amenadiel says authoritatively.

"You could stop time again," Lucifer suggests. "We can go in and save the rest."

A slow headshake. "You know that's not how it works."

"It _works_ how we feel like making it work," Lucifer retorts, poking at the burns on his hand, on his shoulder. "He's not going to _stop_ us, is he?"

Amenadiel shoots an intense look into the flames, eyes scanning the blazing church top to bottom. "It's not going to help."

"...You know, I'm growing to appreciate the brevity of the human time in this world," Lucifer shares.

"Yes. People _always_ want _more time_." The angel spreads his hands. He turns and starts to walk, and Lucifer fumbles a little, discovering something is amiss with his ankle, and hops on one foot before catching up. _Not dignified at all_. They walk side by side through the destruction, Amenadiel at least polished and unaffected by it. It's depressing, but also a little bit nostalgically old school. Lucifer is quite reminded of the dissolution of the monasteries.

"Oh, you could help _him_." Lucifer points. "Or -- no, wait, too late. You're already enough in trouble for mister coma-man, what's-his-name, aren't you? I _bet_ you are." He smirks, looking for confirmation or otherwise in the angel's features. " _Him_." He breaks off the game to hustle Amenadiel across to a prone body. "Him, you could help."

He watches Amenadiel kneel beside the dying man -- a good man, one of _Father's_ , no question. Amenadiel touches his face and says, mellowly, with angelic benevolence and compassion, "Go in peace. Your pain is over. Greater things await."

Lucifer rolls his eyes. Amenadiel straightens, though his attention still focuses down upon his _late_ charge. " _Not_ what I meant," Lucifer strops.

"The point isn't to save them all," Amenadiel says, frowning.

"Yet you came _here_ to save _me_." Lucifer drives the point home feeling somewhat petty. "And Detective Decker, maybe," he adds, for completeness' sake. He still doesn't know how she's _special_ , how she affects him the way she does. He can't detect any actual divinity in her, but maybe she has some destiny that means angels will just _happen to_ be there and feel compelled to protect her, even if by accident. Come to think of it, that could be why he's found himself so -- attached.

Amenadiel doesn't look like his thought processes encompass any of that, though. He just looks a bit surprised. "Apparently so," he muses, and nods to himself. "Perhaps I walk more dangerous ground than I comprehended." He breathes in -- deigns to take a large breath of real air and make it audible in the lungs he probably doesn't even think about having most of the time. "No matter. It is now already done."

"Well..." Lucifer see-saws a bit on the cusp of it, and then throws himself into an ebullient, "Thanks, bro," and pats Amenadiel's arm with gusto. "The leather jacket looks good, by the way."

Amenadiel frowns at him as if he suspects something _implied_. Lucifer innocently affects an expression that says he never, ever would do such a thing.

"All things considered," Amenadiel says, "there are a depressing number of _yours_ among the deceased here today, Luci."

" _Not mine_." A necessary correction. "I do hope Father is working out his plans for someone else to look after them... Now, wait." A sudden uneasy thought overcomes him, and he grabs Amenadiel's arms and stops them both on the grass. "I _did_ ask you to talk to the Reverend Johnny Joe, now, didn't I? Tell me this _isn't_ your... 'discussion'."

Amenadiel narrows his eyes. "Of course not. Of course, _your_ presence here is not going to look well to the police or the newscasts. Or to the remnant of his followers. And Ms Decker is probably going to want to know how the church caught fire." His eyes drift out over the bodies, police cars, ambulances, and the fire engines that are _finally_ starting to arrive. "But I'll... leave you to all the exciting complications of your Earthbound life."

"Oh, you--" Lucifer starts, but Amenadiel is gone.

Amenadiel, he thinks, is developing a _staggeringly_ bitchy streak lately, all things considered.

***

**3\. DUST TO DUST ******

He's standing at the grave of another man he'd called his friend when the Angel of the Lord comes down and says, "How's it hanging?"

Lucifer looks _venom_ at Amenadiel. If they weren't standing over Geoff Dyson's grave, he'd -- oh, _hell_ with it. He lunges across the fresh-dug patch and stubby headstone to Amenadiel and throws a punch.

Amenadiel's wings frame the church at his back with their arc, seeming to fill the whole sky. Lucifer may not have _wings_ any more, may not have true divinity, may be some undefined stage between Earth and Heaven and Hell that he doesn't begin to comprehend, but he isn't hampered by the restraining force of Chloe Decker, and when he throws a punch, the angel knows it's been _punched_.

Amenadiel goes down, stretched out on his back, wings landing with a _flump_ that nonetheless seems to do damage to nothing nearby that's been erected in earthly dedication to either the Lord or the human dead.

"I _called_ for you!" Lucifer rages. "What, you'll save _murderers_ but a good man -- I can't give life any more! Can't bring it _back_. Where were you? I thought you were _helping_ me now."

"Helping _you_ ," Amenadiel chokes, craning his head up from his prone position on the graveyard ground. "A human dies, that isn't my--"

" _Bullshit_! Bloody buggering bullshit!" Lucifer rages.

"The fates of individual humans are down to the will of the Lord our Father."

"I knew it. It's a waste of time talking to you, it's always the same _crap_! Did you..." Lucifer falters. They're not actually all-seeing, after all. If he'd been sufficiently distracted at some other task... "Did you hear me?"

"I heard you," Amenadiel affirms.

Lucifer dives to hit him again and Amenadiel kicks his foot from under him, sending him in an uncontrolled sideways sprawl. The graveyard furniture isn't so kind to him as to his brother. A gravestone cracks him on the chin. The noise it makes is impressively resounding. For a moment, it almost feels like pain, but Chloe isn't here, the damage is negotiable, though it dazes him for a few seconds. He shakes his head and blinks across at Amenadiel, who's also still on the ground, trying to curl up his wings to get the purchase to roll over.

One thing about bloody huge wings is that they do sometimes get in the way.

"You heard and you didn't care," Lucifer croaks. The urge to fight has gone out of him, along with the urge to move much. Another time, it might be diverting to watch Amenadiel the Bright waving his limbs in the air like an overturned tortoise. "You knew and you ignored me. There were _hours_ where we could have saved him. It took him hours to go. I donated my blood--!"

He'd entertained some thought that that might help: a large enough dose of at least _remnant_ divinity. Maybe it didn't work because Chloe had to be there so they could draw it, but he'd sent her away afterward. Bleeding for someone always made him feel dizzy, and that was still a strange and new experience.

"I heard," Amenadiel says roughly. "The devil is a universal donor."

Detective Decker had found that quietly funny, too.

"Then why?" Lucifer demands. "It's the second time this has happened, and this time, this time there was _much more time_ to do something to save my friend! You knew how much it meant..."

"It's what you wanted." Amenadiel twitches his shoulders and his wings flick up to tuck in tight, hovering over his back, feathers shivering. He rolls over and puts his hand on top of Lucifer's where it lies on the grass. "A human life."

"That's _not_ what I--" Lucifer shakes his head incredulously. "I chose _Earth_ , because I'd had it up to here with _Hell_ , and with misery and all the worst of everything and--"

Amenadiel catches his other flailing hand. "Earth," he repeats. "You chose Earth."

\--Oh. "I didn't choose _humanity_ ," he protests. Petulant; he sounds _petulant._

"You kind of did." Amenadiel's laughter is soft and gruff. "Humans love, and lose--"

" _Don't_ give me a lesson about the shortness of life." Lucifer plays with the angel's hands in his hands. They feel too smooth, like the skin doesn't take marks at all, not the way _his_ have calluses on them now... Calluses Amenadiel turns his hands over to examine.

"I would be afraid," Amenadiel says, after a lingering silence.

"I'm _not_." It's only a shade of a lie. Sometimes there is -- apprehension. He doesn't have enough understanding of what's happening. But it _isn't_ Hell, and after more of the same for aeons, at least it's variety. And it raises such interesting questions. Can an angel -- fallen angel -- die? An _angel_ become human and die? Can his divinity be trotted out again, Hell reassigned to him, his wrist slapped, or will he find himself walking through his own gates to eternal torment?

"Do you never think that he gave you Hell because you had the strength to endure that task this long?" Amenadiel asks, bluntly, forcefully.

"Not in the least," Lucifer growls, and rips his hands back. Succeeds with one -- Amenadiel uses the other to drag him onto his feet. Amenadiel lets him go and he staggers a few steps to the side. Gingerly, the angel fingers his jaw, and so does Lucifer, only his crunches under the touch.

He puts his hand on Geoff's headstone and murmurs, "Sorry, mate." Then again, Geoff liked a good barney as much as anyone, and chances are would get a kick out of an angel and fallen angel exchanging blows over his grave.

"You of all people know that his soul is loved and cared for in God's grace," Amenadiel says.

"Blah, blah, blah," Lucifer huffs. "He's no longer down here with _me_."

"That's just selfishness."

"Life. Death. _Eternity_ ," Lucifer spits. "Maybe _time_ is more important than you think. Figures that would be a blind spot for a guy that can freeze it and dispense with it whenever he pleases."

He waits for Amenadiel's rebuttal, for some other smug answer, but the graveyard is silent and the response never comes.

***

**4\. FLIGHT**

"Do you miss it?"

They're at the top of a very tall building: a (stupid, futile) habit Lucifer has allowed himself to indulge when he misses the views and the whoosh of the winds and the freedom of Hea-- of _the heavens._

Of course, his annoying guardian angel decides to pop in. "Of course I bloody miss it," Lucifer says, with too much rancour. "I destroyed what the wings represented, the _temptation_ of the things, I didn't actually want to bloody give up the physical act of flight, which as things go... I'm pretty fond of sex, I mean I think that sex, on the whole, is _better_ , but I still _miss_ being up there." He waves an arm over the expanse of the city. "Catching an air current, taking _illicit_ pleasure in a fast dive, skimming the tops of the houses and clipping off roof tiles... Don't tell me you've never done it. I used to be an angel, too."

"They didn't have houses, back when you were an angel."

Today, Amenadiel looks fractious in a suit. The expression on his face is serious enough to make Lucifer check his impression that the angel only came here to gloat. "That just tells you how long it's been. Hence why I'd be so willing to give up _all of this_ \--" He waves his arm again, rather overdramatically "--for a little time spent _not in Hell_."

Amenadiel snorts. "Heard it."

Lucifer shifts. "Why did you come here, anyway?"

"If all I'm going to get is insults, I'm considering going away again."

"No, no." Lucifer flaps. His _hands_ , clearly, and not his _nonexistent wings_ that he doesn't have anymore, because Father put him in a corner and forced him to cut them off. Not that he's bitter. He and Amenadiel are getting along more lately, though. Probably he shouldn't spoil that. "Stay, brother. Come along; to what do I owe the pleasure of your company?"

Amenadiel gives a polite nod. "Better." He casts his eyes around, head turning to the sky above, before he twists his neck to look all around and below.

"This is not public access," Lucifer fills in. "But I _did_ bribe a fellow to let me be here with perfectly legal money. Which I hazard makes this still illegal, but possibly _less_ illegal, depending how you weigh it up."

"I'm not worried about human laws." Amenadiel's shoulder lifts, and then his wings burst out. Without ruining his suit. For a moment, it's a blinding dark glow. Lucifer scowls at the thought of divinity blinding him, as if he were only mortal. "I thought you might want... a ride."

Lucifer chokes. "You're _joking_. What, on your back like a pony? That'll be a snap for the gossip blogs. Or--?"

Amenadiel scowls. "No one will see us. _I'll_ hold _you_ ," he states, firmly. "Those are the terms. If you want to..." He leaves it hanging, then grows impatient. "If you don't, I'll just make myself scarce."

Lucifer waggles a hand in a 'stay' gesture. "Give me a moment, this is kind of an odd prospect to take in. You want me... to hitch a ride on your _wingeyness_... for what? To make me long for everything I've cast aside? Make me beg Father to let me come back to hell, restore my wings and everything that goes with?"

Amenadiel huffs with divine disgruntlement. Amenadiel's disgruntlement could probably knock people over like matchsticks: good thing there's no-one else here to be standing too close to the edge. "I thought you might enjoy it," he says. Crossly.

Lucifer grimaces. "I might enjoy it," he allows, a moment later. He reaches his arms out. "So... what do you want me to hang off of?"

"Do you _have_ to make that sound so... insinuating?" A headshake and the angel picks his feet up from the roof, wings giving a lazy flap to provide that much lift. "Why don't you just _stand_ there... and I'll carry you... If you want to do this at all?"

"I do." It's embarrassing how much he does. It would be _better_ not to let on to Amenadiel how much he does. He turns and stretches his arms out again in coy expectation. "Take it away. Oh! And careful with the suit, I just had this one tailored."

"Your _suit_ is more important than taking to the air on wings again?" Amenadiel's voice, unimpressed, is full of the question _Why am I bothering_? Lucifer really could ask _him_ that one. 'I thought you might enjoy it' isn't an _answer_ , now, is it?

"There's no reason the suit has to get damaged, and less chance of it happening if I warn you," Lucifer grumps. Amenadiel always trivializes practicalities that just... if you consider them, make the world run so much smoother.

"Fine." Amenadiel's arms snake around his chest and waist and he picks Lucifer up.

That's... honestly a bit disconcerting, first-off. Not being in control of the movement causes a disorientation. The vestigial cut-off muscles in his back twitch out of reflex as his feet leave the ground and those big, dark wings flap above them -- even if Amenadiel's wings obviously don't look _exactly_ like his own, and the angle isn't quite right. Familiarity is still a sharp kick, and the loss is... more keen.

"Okay?" Amenadiel asks with notable concern.

Lucifer lets his breath out in a wheeze, _finally_. "I'm fine! Onward!" He flails a hand. "Let's go to sea! We can play at diving and skimming the water."

"Not to put too fine a point on it," Amenadiel says, "but I'm in control of this trip."

"Well, then, tourmaster, take me on your tour!" It's hard not to shout by reflex. There's so much background noise with the wind and the flaps of wings, and he can't see Amenadiel -- except for his wingtips, anyway -- behind him.

Amenadiel's idea of a good time isn't the same as Lucifer's, but it's enough that they're flying. He's flying again, or can imagine himself to be. He's not sure Amenadiel isn't at least subconsciously pushing the agenda he swore he wasn't, since he takes them around cathedrals and churches and religious statuary, but maybe that's just the built-in architecture of Amenadiel's brain, unavoidable. In any case, they see the city, and they make it out to the sea eventually.

With his skin and suit still damp from skimming the waves -- it was more like a dunking, and he's not completely convinced that the angel only misjudged -- Lucifer finally sets down, and sits down, on a jetty heading out into the blue, blue ocean. In reality, his legs collapse the instant they touch the ground. His breath heaves. His heartbeat slowly returns to normal.

Amenadiel regards him worriedly.

"...Not used to that anymore," Lucifer says.

"No," Amenadiel sombrely agrees.

"Thank you," Lucifer huffs, heartfelt even though he's wet and his new suit is wet.

Amenadiel nods. Why does he look so full of _gloom_ , like someone died? A moment later, Amenadiel's gone, anyway.

Lucifer shakes his head and forgets it. He takes deeper breaths and works his way to picking his legs up. He needs to... actually, he needs to get back to the tower. Reassure the guy he paid that he's actually left and come down. If he heads back to Lux and leaves them in a panic wondering if he's jumped off and landed in the guttering on some rooftop, or in a dumpster somewhere, they probably won't let him do it again.

***

**5\. SPIRIT**

Sometimes, Lucifer can't sleep. He went most of his existence, after all, without having to bother. Since he lopped off his wings, he unwillingly would have to confess that he thinks he probably _needs_ to sleep, now. At least _some_ sleep. _Some_ sleep is where the diversion of owning a night club comes in handy, because the few hours a night he actually needs and can physically fall into make things bloody boring if every human on the planet is catching flies and he's stuck reminiscing over the old greatest torture hits with Maze. He'd rather bone enough people to wear himself out, and preferably keep them on hand until morning just in case he wakes up bored again.

Morris left at 3AM. Lucifer's a little peeved with Morris, who he's starting to think he's indulging rather too much, especially when he's only a paltry shadow anyway. Lucifer can count on the fingers of one hand the humans who've been in his bed twice, and prior to Morris, that was _only twice_. Chloe and Maze have started cracking jokes about him having a regular boyfriend. They raise their eyebrows and looks ever so arch while they do it, too.

Now, Lucifer can't sleep, so any boyfriendly duties Morris is obliged to, he is failing them utterly, and Lucifer thinks he's going to look for blondes tomorrow. Tonight.

He opens the window and leans out. The night-time city sprawls beneath him. There's still enough going on that he could go out, but then not being quite sure how vulnerable he might be puts a damper on risky activities these days.

"Can't sleep?" Amenadiel asks, landing on a ledge to the left of him.

Lucifer blinks. "Thank you, no, I can't sleep. Not that that's surprising."

"Part of me likes the city when it's this quiet, but then again, most of the people abroad in it are your sort."

"I'm not responsible for Hell anymore," Lucifer snaps. "And of the sinners and the drug dealers and the thieves, I renounce any claim to ownership."

"I meant clubbers," Amenadiel says drolly. "Is... whatshisname...?" Amenadiel shoots an unprecedentedly furtive look toward the shadowed interior of the bedroom.

"Morris left," Lucifer grumps. "You know what? Morris is _dumped_. He just doesn't know it yet. It's his fault that I'm here, bored, at 3AM."

"Didn't think that would last long." Amenadiel grins. They really do look a lot alike. Wait--

"Tell me that _wasn't_ a trick!" Lucifer blurts, outraged. "You -- you _wouldn't_ \--" Not least because that would mean Amenadiel was -- that Amenadiel consented to be with him, inside him, and vice versa, in all those all-too-human ways. Not that Amenadiel hasn't done lots of naughty human things with Maze, but angels do tend to be stuffy traditionalists.

Amenadiel just stares at him with a wrinkle in his nose and like he's off his head. "Pray tell what would be the purpose of that game, brother?"

Lucifer gives up. "Sure. Whatever." He sighs.

"We could talk about the purpose of your game in keeping him," Amenadiel adds with a distinct edge.

"No purpose," Lucifer says. "I told you, I'm _not_ keeping him, now."

"Because it's a shallow connection fuelled by an outward appearance purposely selected only to abrade upon me," Amenadiel fills in dourly, sort of irony and sort of right all at once. "Do you even know anything about his personality, five weeks on?"

"I know he really likes blow jobs." Lucifer slides his eyes sideways, narrowly. "Do you like blow jobs?"

"He wasn't me, Luci." Amenadiel sounds like he's losing patience.

"No, but if the real thing wants to come in and try to prove himself, I'm sure Maze won't mind. We've shared before. We share everything. What's hers is mine... blah blah."

Amenadiel surges from the ledge with an ominous clap of wings, diving first into the night before his body flips up to come to rest on the ledge right in front of the open window, instead. His eyes are dark coals. There are runnels of flame, filament-thin, riding his wings. He looks like beauty and divinity and not a whole lot like Morris.

The feeling of danger only stretches Lucifer's grin wider, making the muscles of his face ache pleasantly, in that way they have of late. He reaches out a hand to take hold of Amenadiel's wrist through the open portion of the window, though the bars and glass are still a barrier between most of their bodies.

"Go for a walk, Luci," Amenadiel intones. "Go take a _cold shower_." His voice reduces to a hiss. "We may not be brothers in an earthly sense, but we are closer than this."

"I'm the _Devil_." Lucifer plays his fingers upon Amenadiel's wrist and pushes his face close, mashing his nose against glass. And really? Amenadiel wants to play the incest card, like they're humans and biology matters? Like it would matter to him anyway if this was _sordid_ and _illicit_ and _wrong_. He can hear the laugh in his own voice as he calls it out. "I'm the Devil! Come join me, Amenadiel. I've got sixteen different flavours of condoms, and I'll even let you pick."

Amenadiel blinks, derailing his attempt to be all weighty and wrathful. "Since when do you need--?"

"Well, I don't _know_ if I _need_ , do I? I just like the flavours."

Amenadiel shakes his head and breathes in, building a new head of wrath. Lucifer flexes his palm against the window, and maybe it's all the angelic force radiating upon it from both sides -- Lucifer certainly hasn't made any decision to do it, but the glass splinters dramatically, all the same.

"Yes, come here," Lucifer gabbles, and grabs Amenadiel's surprised face and kisses him.

It's far enough down to re-open that question of what happens if he dies on Earth, but Amenadiel doesn't take that option, even though it would be very easy. He pushes them both back inside the room instead, crumbling the frame of the window as he steps through it, cinching his wings back in.

"Oh, don't put them _away_." Knocked backward by the entrance, Lucifer lands on the floor on his buttocks and elbows. He wonders if it'll make Amenadiel possessive if his bed smells of sex with someone else, his lesser human doppelganger?

"You are _insane_ ," Amenadiel says, a despairing, incredulous note. "I let myself be tempted by the demon. Enough--!"

Lucifer wonders, was he a stranger to human sex, when Maze took him first? With the vast knowledge and confidence of an angel -- especially _this_ angel -- it would be hard to be sure. If he'd really never been touched like that before, or if he'd _dabbled_ , time to time, down the centuries...

Thing is, thing _is_ , his brethren are all so very bloody _boring_ he can have no idea if they _have_ , any of them. Amenadiel in particular pushes the lines, so if any of them were _likely_ to...

"Father asked us to love each other, remember?" Lucifer gloats, climbing backward up the foot of the bed, hooking elbows on the mattress, and -- ow, is that a _graze_? "He didn't specify a limit upon how." Grinningly, he gestures Amenadiel in closer, and from a position still mostly on the floor sets his palm over Amenadiel's crotch.

Amenadiel picks him up. For a moment he expects a short journey into a hard wall at a very great speed -- Amenadiel's always had a good arm. Instead, they both land on the bed with a _whump_ of upholstery. Lucifer hums in the back of his throat and clamps any available limb around Amenadiel against him changing his mind and starts trying to peel off clothing, though those are kind of non-compatible goals. A wing tip brushes his face and he buries his hand in feathers.

"Ouch," Amenadiel berates. "You _know_ that is sensitive there."

Lucifer knows. He feels the hand which creeps behind his own back and the fingers that trail over the scars where they've groomed _his_ wings for him in ages past. 

"I cannot believe--" Amenadiel's voice sounds oddly broken "--that you chose this."

Lucifer flexes muscles that aren't materially attached to anything anymore, which ripple under his skin to caress those searching fingers in return.

"On, come on, I'm not in it for the pity party. Besides, you shared yours--"

Amenadiel kisses him. It's unexpected. There's still righteous fire burning in his eyes, but the kiss isn't hard, doesn't burn. In fact, he's very gentle.

"I'm not _fragile_ ," Lucifer complains, injecting scandal into his tone.

"No..." Amenadiel comes up, considering. "But you're more human than I'm used to, and probably less robust than your demon, by now."

"Talk about how to polish a guy's ego..." He wonders what Amenadiel _sees_ , with his divine vision. The divisions in him; the places where divinity starts to flutter and tire and whatever Earthly self he's doomed to starts taking hold. Lucifer tries to roll them over, but their comparative leverage -- alright, the just altogether downright inconvenient _fixability_ of having a twelve foot wingspan of pure muscle on your back -- makes that an impossible contest. He hasn't made as much impression on Amenadiel's clothing as he'd have hoped, so far, either. 

Lucifer himself wasn't wearing a stitch to start with, mind. "Brother, brother... there are some _practicalities_ to attend..." He plays his fingers over Amenadiel's lips.

Then he's underneath an Amenadiel slowly sitting back and starting to peel himself out of his apparel.

Lucifer grabs the leather jacket. " _Was_ this because of Morris?"

"What do you think?"

They're more-or-less constructed male and female on the human model. Mostly. Father did include the odd variation, but Amenadiel proves himself not one of those. (Lucifer remembers, actually. They didn't always wear clothes. Humans and _modesty_ and the concept of _shame_ brought that one about. He still remembers _before_.) Amenadiel unfastens his trousers and peels them down, and Lucifer runs his tongue over his lips at the reveal.

Lucifer reaches down and catches Amenadiel in his hand before the angel can fully reclaim his balance, smirking at the grunt that elicits. He draws Amenadiel back up using the grip his hand has taken. "Oh, come closer, brother," he croons, "come _here_." He drags him close enough that he can thrust his hips up and wiggle and manoeuvre both their lengths together into the clutch of his hand. He could kind of use longer fingers, yes, but he grips tighter instead.

Amenadiel hisses at him.

Lucifer curls a leg over his hip and makes a heroic effort to shift his centre of gravity, and more because Amenadiel eyerolls and gives in than anything else, they twist and land with the angel underneath, where Lucifer finds himself happily throned in the centre of a bed lined with Amenadiel's wings.

He lifts up his spare hand to touch his dazed -- so amusingly _dazed_ \-- beautiful brother's face.

"You are frivolous," Amenadiel breathes. "And I should not."

...Way to go selling that, brother, when his hand has returned to cradle Lucifer's face, the way the other hand cradles the hollow of Lucifer's back... and would prevent him from backing off if he'd been inclined to try. 

"I don't believe in _shouldn't_ ," Lucifer says. "But wouldn't Father be proud if you managed to give me such a religious experience I came back to the fold?"

" _That_ has already long past proven a losing battle," Amenadiel declares.

"...Doesn't mean you can't _try_..."

END 


End file.
